Gascon Scouts

The Gascon Scouts were a light cavalry unit of the French Army that served under King Charles VIII of France during the Italian Wars. The scouts rode ahead of the French army during its invasion of Italy in 1494-1495, and they were known to be rapacious and cruel; they often cut off ears and wore them as necklaces. In 1495, during Charles VIII's retreat from Rome, the scouts raped and massacred the nuns of the Convent of St. Cecilia, leading to the Papal general Cesare Borgia swearing vengeance. He assembled a force of condottieri, including Battista Colonna, Rhodente Orsini, and Carlo Baglione, and they laid out a wedding banquet for the French as they advanced north. The French soldiers ate the food at the banquet, only to be ambushed by the condottieri and massacred. The surviving scouts were captured and tortured by Borgia and Micheletto Corella, and they revealed that King Charles' army stored its gunpowder in food barrels so that they could protect the gunpowder from the rain. The last scouts were then tortured to death.